Out of the Blues by Mercy Celeste Page A

looked up at me with clear eyes. “Too many reminders of shit I don’t want to deal with.”
    “I know, Kilby, I said I’d take you back to the hotel. Let me go tell Harper and I’ll be right back.” Hunter waved his cellphone at the sky. There was no reception out here, I’d already checked.
    “I’m heading back, he can go with me.” What the fuck was I saying? The Marine…Kilby, looked at me with exactly the same thought in his eyes. “It’s been a long time since I went juking, not really dealing with meeting the entire town again at once either. And Harper…I swear she’s crazier than I remember,” I said that with a smile for Hunter’s benefit. Harper had always been like that. I was like that. I used to be like that, anyway. We were always like that. But now… “I’m still suffering from jetlag and too many hours stuck in Denver.” I shrugged away any ulterior motive thoughts…especially my own. I didn’t really want to be stuck in a rental car with a dude who might puke or kill me. Either option was fairly repugnant to me.
    “That would be awesome, Mace.” I could hear the relief in Hunter’s voice.
    “Gee thanks, little brother; love you so much right now.” And so had Kilby. But they seemed to be just like Harper and me when it came to ragging on each other so I just grinned and fished in my pocket for my keys. So what if I had a condom in there. It’s not like I put it there. That girl from somewhere that I didn’t really remember slipped it into my pocket when she kissed me. She’d also slipped her number in but I threw that away. I was not thinking about sex with a dude…shut up.
    “Well, okay then, if that’s settled.” I twirled my keys around my finger and watched as the Marine climbed unsteadily to his feet. “Dude you’re not going to vomit on me, are you?” I had to ask. He looked like he was seriously nursing a good projectile variety hurl.
    “No,” was all he said as he stared out across the parking lot. There were several black Chargers out there but he picked out mine and headed unerringly toward it. “Later, Hunter, kiss your bride for me.”
    “I’ll do that…you go…kiss her brother.”
    I turned to my future brother-in-law with a fuck you just say look and watched him wince. “Sorry, Mace. That went too far.”
    “Yeah, man, it did,” I said and followed the Marine to my car.
    I clicked the locks on the key fob and he was inside before I got there.
    “Can you roll the windows down?” Was the only thing he said when I got inside. We didn’t talk. We didn’t even look at each other. I didn’t want to listen to the radio so I turned that off and rolled his window down. “Thanks, man.”
    “The controls are on the door if you want to let it back up,” I said. I was usually better at conversation. I mean, that’s what I do. I talk. I’ve always talked. But this guy seriously messed with my head just by being nearby and I did not like that.
    I pulled out onto the road and went the wrong way. That’s what I mean right there. I’d driven this route about a hundred times and I went…the way I always did out of the lot. Fuck.
    “Isn’t the hotel the other way?” His voice was even deeper in the inky dark of the middle of nowhere. I could just see his outline in the passenger seat.
    “Yeah. I used to live this way. I was on automatic pilot. I’ll turn around up the road.”
    He grunted at my excuse. “What else is in this direction?”
    “Town,” I said, knowing there might be a couple of late night food places open. “Hungry?”
    “Not right now.” He paused for a couple of heartbeats while I looked for the road I remembered being up ahead. “Are you in a hurry to get back to the hotel?”
    “Not particularly,” I said leaving out the part about the pack of relatives that were haunting the place and that I had a roommate and it was too damned early to go to bed. Besides I was still on west coast time.
    “Don’t turn around.”
    So I